The rebel takeover of the key Congolese city of Goma has sparked fears for the future of one of Africa’s biggest and most war-torn countries.

In the short term, the victory by the M23 rebels could trigger a wave of reprisal attacks on civilians in the city of a million people. Thousands of displaced people, in the chaos of the rebel advance, are fleeing out of Goma or into the city from rural camps …

United Nations peacekeepers, who had deployed helicopters to strafe the rebels with cannons and rockets on Sunday in a futile attempt to slow their advance, appeared to give up and just stood by watching as the rebels took the city. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said it was “absurd” that the 17,000-member UN force was unable to stop a few hundred rebels.

Absurd? Absurd?

For some, the correct word is “expected”. Not so for Steven Pinker, who’s argued that the decline in international warfare is due to the rise of international institutions but most of all, due to the “humanitarian revolution”. He figures the nastiness has been bred out of us by now.

Another contributor was the expansion of international peacekeeping forces, which really do keep the peace—not always, but far more often than when adversaries are left to fight to the bitter end.

Finally, the postwar era has seen a cascade of “rights revolutions”—a growing revulsion against aggression on smaller scales. In the developed world, the civil rights movement obliterated lynchings and lethal pogroms, and the women’s-rights movement has helped to shrink the incidence of rape and the beating and killing of wives and girlfriends.

In recent decades, the movement for children’s rights has significantly reduced rates of spanking, bullying, paddling in schools, and physical and sexual abuse. And the campaign for gay rights has forced governments in the developed world to repeal laws criminalizing homosexuality and has had some success in reducing hate crimes against gay people.

Why has violence declined so dramatically for so long? Is it because violence has literally been bred out of us, leaving us more peaceful by nature?

People who believe that humanity has become relatively more peaceful because of our better angels may still be around to witness what happens if the current administration does away with the long Pax Americana.

42 Comments, 42 Threads

1.
dagger

I lived in the Netherlands after the Sbrenica massacre. There was a palpable sense that something should have been done, but no concurrence about what that meant. Should they have fired on the Serbs? Should they have engaged in nonviolent sit-ins? The angst came from realizing that our rules of engagement don’t change the realities of evil. It has cost thousands of lives and will continue to. The disturbing fact is that liberal democracies assume that everyone plays by our rules (or will once exposed to them). This is the same assumption that causes the impulse to open borders; the sweet feel of liberty on the feet will bring about change. But cultural imprints don’t extinguish so easily, and we are left with wars inside our cities and outside our borders that we don’t understand the ROEs. Without a decision to only intervene in conflicts that at least one party is more or less playing by our rules, we have impotent and very expensive peacekeeping that simply doesn’t…

Pinker has no qualifications in the area, and even the books he writes on what is purported to be his specialty are tendentious. Any fool can take some general Darwinian and game theory rules and speculate about history, wave your hands and offer grand generalizations. In fact, that’s about par for the course on your average Internet blog, been known to do it meself now and again, cough cough. In general I’ll take Larry Niven’s scifi extrapolations on the topic over anything Pinker spouts.

Niven speculated thirty++ years ago on the aggression being bred and socialized out of us (and various alien species handy for the story). So have lots of scifi authors, now that you mention it. Probably half a dozen or more (arguably all?) Star Trek TOS episodes on the subject. Seems to have been a major trope in the 1950s and 1960s. Guess what folks, it never seems to end well. All those peace-seeking star fleet operations, yet all those phasers and photon torpedoes get used incessantly. Peace, little green brothers. Oops.

Wonder if Pinker realizes he’s just plagiarizing what were no doubt influences from his early life he doesn’t even consciously recall. There’s some armchair speculation for ya from yours truly.

Mr. Pinker is the Harvard College Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. Sorry to pick on your alma mater, Wretchard, but what more would you expect from someone planted so firmly in the Ivory Tower? I wonder how quickly he would flee from Cambridge, if say, Québécois “Militants” (isn’t that the correct term now used for thugs and terrorists?) attacked his adopted city?
Mankind’s “nature” will never change; religion and the morals that they preach are the only means that have been found to attempt to “civilize” that nature. Until progressives figure that out, they will continue to destroy western civilization. I wonder what they will they do, when any of these militants that they’ve applauded (from a distance, of course) show them exactly how little violence has been removed from mankind’s nature? I mean besides get killed rather quickly…

Ah yes, the appropriately named UN. As in the “un”-necessary, “un”-aware, “un”-organized…you get the picture.

This may be slightly O/T, but this kind of reminds me of all the recent UN hand-wringing about how they didn’t “do enough” in Sri Lanka a few years ago as the gov’t was routing the last of the Tamil Tigers. Yes, it’s tragic when civilians die, but what was Sri Lanka’s alternative, let the war drag on for another few decades? How many civilians would die in that period?

We’ve really lost our appreciation for short, brutal, decisive total wars. Instead we’ve opted for death by a thousand paper cuts with our misguided COIN strategies and whatever passes for nation building these days. But alas, war is big business these days; too many people have an interest in seeing them drag on interminably.

There are many things that the West should feel guilty about, but when the balance sheet of Assets and Libilities is drawn up, not remotely as much as other civilisations.

Certainly one of the things that it should NOT feel guilty about is the nightly TV horror show of genocidal violence.

What we are witnessing is the industrialisation of arms production. Why, even your average non-productive Arab can afford an AK-47, so why shouldn’t your average bow-and-arrow African have equality? It’s only fair.

So a Lax Pax is not America’s fault. To think so is a type of oikaphobia. There was only so much that America could do when the relative power equations were skewed. Not anymore.

And the victims can’t say that we haven’t shown them the evils of their ways. The Great War showed them how to do mechanised slaughter. They’re not sufficiently industrialised yet, but some day, they’ll get equality. Maybe when Iran gets the bomb.

In the age of mass-produced RPGs (AK-47s are so two paragraphs ago), mass destruction has to be experienced before an army will willing signify sel-destruction by letting women into the army.

So my money is on mass annihilation in the third world. Pax Americana overcome by Henry Ford.

The trick for us is to pretend concern. Faux resolutions in the UN, feigned shock at ‘unexpected’ outcomes, forbearance with French bluster – that’ll do it. In three words, Lead From Behind.

It is unusual to study the consequences of a society adopting universal pacifism because those who do so are generally not around to testify. The Khmer adopted Theravada Buddhism just around the same time the more aggressive Thai and Viet started pushing South. The Khmer imploded and almost disappeared. In fact much of their crowning achievement at the Angkor complex was so thoroughly swallowed by the jungle they forgot about it until the Europeans discovered it.

Capitalism and thrift, along with the Classic virtues of justice prudence temperance and courage, work and enable the Christian Spiritual virtues of faith hope and charity. Socialism promotes a rejection of the first and a rebellion against the second in the expectation that the last will magically flourish.

The decline of major wars is due to a i r p o w e r and n u k e s. That’s all. It gets too deadly too fast if you do it with too much enthusiasm. That’s why the current most popular application of airpower employs aircraft that would have been a joke in WWII. Only 2 small bombs? 90 kt cruise speed? No thanks, we’ll keep out 10000 B-17′s.

And the failure to properly address wars such as in the Congo, the former Yugoslavia, Ruawanda, et al, is due to a recognition that winning such a war also implies a necessity for Regime Chance. And Regime Change looks an awful lot like colonialism without the profit. The anti-colonialists have succeeded in making anything that looks like a big guy taking over a small guy the Ultimate Evil, and besides, without the profit, who wants to do it anyway.

Man and Man’s law, this is what we are witnessing, Gods law is to brutal for the 21st Century Civilized world, mans law is as dust in the wind, Man knew exactly where he stood in God’s Law and Gods law is far more humane and compassionate than mans will ever be.

The very existence of the UN is more likely to encourage brutal preemptive intertribal warfare. I can’t think of a single instance where provocateurs were made to give back gains achieved in a quick and paralyzing pogrom. The invading army only needs to attack quickly and take their objectives. They do not even need to have the ability to sustain their efforts to quell counter-violence because it is a certainty the UN will step in to negotiate a solution that recognizes the invaders claims. Little or no effort at that point is necessary to hold ground. The victims too would be expected to negotiate and to concede to concessions to conquering militia.

The more spontaneous and irrationally motivated the attack the better its chances of success.

And this; “In recent decades, the movement for children’s rights has significantly reduced rates of spanking, bullying, paddling in schools, and physical and sexual abuse.”

Really? How does the author conflate corporal punishment and sexual abuse. Geesh. Our so called learning institutions have become forts where rent seeking union workers man the towers while wilding “kids” run the yard and the psychological and physical abuse, in a world of children’s rights, are met out at the hands of the kiddies themselves and the violence is more likely associated with another kind of union ruled by armed street thugs often illegal aliens. And on that note, illegal aliens are responsible for much or most of the sexual abuse here in Mexifornia.

The peace comes as part of the rules of the golden straight jacket, take away jobs, future wellbeing, saddle a generation with debt that sentences them to de facto indentured labor for life, steal their last dreams for themselves and see how long this tenuous civil society lasts. The destructive peaceniks will be shocked by the unforeseen turn of events that they themselves have set loose.

So this is what the crazy kids like Lena Dunham have loosed, the Ride of the Valkyries? They might be so traumatized in a year or two they won’t be able to enjoy endless , carefree sex while staring dreamy eyed at Dear Leader up on the television screen. “Obama’s gonna change the world…” indeed.

And I wonder whether he might make any connection between the phenomenal amount of lying in one area (oh, say Israel-Palestine) and the lying in other realms? (E.g., the economy, green energy, American politics, the political stability of Europe or China or Russia, the “Arab spring”, etc.)

Maybe there’s no connection. Maybe it’s all a coincidence….

Maybe it’s actually further proof that we are living in a less violent age!

You might want to ask Pinker how parents’ rights are doing at the hands of the U.N. agenda. Think they want you to be able to put your foot down when your 13 year-old daughter secretly goes to Eugenics R Us and starts having sex with her 18 year-old boyfriend?

Wait til you see what Hildabeast and Ohomo have cooked up for binding U.N. treaties on so-called child rights.

rwe @ 9: The decline of major wars is due to a i r p o w e r and n u k e s.

Also automatic weapons, and PGM. Frankly it’s the PGM that have done it. And that only one side (us) has them, and the delivery platforms, and control of the battlespace. No sane opponent will challenge it. Not after Israel as far back as 1967 and 1974 defeated the set of Soviet weapons, the mujihadeen with US-stingers defeated the Soviets, the Highway To Hell in Kuwait in 1991, and the two Gulf Wars where there was virtually no effective military resistance to major US forces.

The problem is there are insane opponents.

Iran is bucking to try their hand. This will likely go down as the most massively stupid move in the history of mankind. OTOH, with Obambus in the catbird seat, Iran has an ally (if only in massive stupidity). The US and Soviets never came so close to nuclear war as Iran and Israel are today, and I don’t mean tomorrow, tomorrow Iran and Israel will be much closer to nuclear war, and there seems almost no chance now to stop it.

The insane opponent bets the dominant opponent will not use their strength. It has demonstratively worked against the Soviets in Afghanistan, and against the US in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The Soviets did not successfully use enough, arguable we’ve done somewhat better at using just enough in Iraq and Afghanistan. The problem, as E2 suggests above, is that maybe if we used MORE, we would have had *decisive* wins much more quickly and REDUCED CASUALTIES ON BOTH SIDES. And if not, hey, it would still reduce casualties on OUR SIDE. That’s the game I want to play. The argument is that it would only strengthen the resistance against us and not after all resolve the issue or reduce casualties, and also that it is in some way unethical, unfair, asymmetric on the wrong side. Well, these are academic arguments. The sad truth is we’ve *tried* it that way now, with minimal forces. It has not worked well. With a rational, ethical opponent you’d expect better results than we have got. We need to process the actual data and learn from it.

LOOK at the case in this post, 17,000 UN troops can’t stop a few hundred aggressors – because they won’t shoot. As we saw in Kosovo.

Niven made a case like that, writ large, the Macguffin in his “World Out Of Time” story/novel. Because the robot believed in this kind of theory, it thought it was protecting its entire world from falling by sending the protagonist away – three billion years into the future, as it turns out, because he as just one average man might be enough to topple The State. When informed the robot had taken him seriously, the protagonist laughed, that the stupid robot had believed just a silly theory. And yet, as we see from today’s news, it remains a reasonable theory all the same, and a reductio ad absurdum argument against weakness, moral, ethical, military.

Oh, I have ranted on on this one, haven’t I.

Well yes I have, but I should make the point explicit, one has to deal with “insane” opponents, and they are not after all insane if their desperate, weak strategy succeeds. The strong opponent CAN LOSE to the weak one, it happens on sports fields every weekend. The strong opponent must play its game, having strength alone, nor right and justice on your side, nor even excessive moral virtue, IS NOT ENOUGH.

It’s always nice to know that the French government is still remorseful that France ever entered the American War of Independence. It’s also nice to know how France is unhappy that the United States didn’t completely stay out of World War I and World War II. Since “war is never the solution”, it is nice to know that Allied guns did not solve the Nazi occupation of France during World War II; instead, the proper means to stopping the occupation should have been the stage sit-ins at Gestapo headquarters.

[sarcasm off]

This may explain the popularity of Barack Obama. President Obama doesn’t wage war. He gives orders to kill people using drones. But since it isn’t called “war” (never mind that it really is war rather than murder), European peace activists don’t get upset. To them, war is wrong, but assassination is acceptable.

Josh @ 18
“The argument is that it would only strengthen the resistance against us and not after all resolve the issue or reduce casualties, and also that it is in some way unethical, unfair, asymmetric on the wrong side.”

Actually, the research evidence supports your theory to say nothing of Sun Tzu’s. Delaying the punishment encourages resistance because the threat escalation is minimal and thus discounted. Bringing the punishment down, hard, on the first infraction (the snowball effect), discourages resistance. Teachers, parents and drill sergeants used to know this – when it was important to make it clear who was in charge. Subsequent resistance comes from those who are making statements, not testing the waters and can be dealt with in other ways.

In other words, the strong can win but the strength must include being indifferent to cries of protest and clouded argument about what “works”.

Every pundit and humanitarian, and actually everyone, bemoans war or at least accepts its terrible costs. Yet every society, from a small tribe to a large nation has, in the past, survived by fostering and practicing the potential to defend itself, and that is normally done by engaging in war. The males of every Indian tribe gloried in their war making prowess; if a tribe did not, sooner or later it was conquered and disappeared into another tribal society. The Roman Empire for centuries experienced almost constant warfare among competing Caesars or would be Caesars, and this allowed it to defend itself against outside invasions. It was only after such warfare disappeared (after the reforms of Julian which instituted local self government in all towns, thereby reducing the powers of most local military leaders) that Rome began to become vulnerable to Barbarian invasions. With internal peace, Rome began to rely on outsiders for its defense. Similarly, today, the pax Americana has diminished the powers of Europe to defend itself, and it shows all signs of becoming vulnerable to barbarian overthrow.
Every society without recent military experience became subject to control by a more powerful power, until the middle of the Twentieth Century.
So warfare is terrible, but without war for an extended period, one loses the knowledge of how to perform it, and becomes vulnerable to destruction. Now in war we want to fight without actually hurting any of our adversaries, or risking the lives of our warriors. It is hard to see how this can work.
Ending a war today by a truce which will undoubtedly lead to another war when the enemy rearms seems foolish, but it is a good way to justify maintaining the power to make war; which in an atmosphere of peace is hard to justify.
Tiny Israel, constantly under threat became a pioneer in the development of drones, and now of anti-missile defense, things that all of Europe, something like 100 times bigger, has lagged in.

Slightly OT-Looks like another cease-fire declaration, but first a bus-load of the “nasty Jews” must be blown to bits by adherents of the religion of peace. As Ann Barnhardt says, “it actually is the religion of peace, so long as you submit completely.”

I hope Netenyahu realizes that Lucy is still planting the football awaiting Charlie Brown’s attempt. Forget the football-kick the sh*t out of Lucy this time.

In the battle of the hegemons nuclear arms and MAD doctrine has stymied the battle of ascendency to a standstill, notably during the cold war. But this standstill will fail when China decides that they have enough people and land distributed throughout Asia and beyond to absorb any counter attack attempted by the world’s remaining super power. It is also likely that with a mealy mouthed radical in possession of the weapons of state that the communists will be greatly encouraged.

While the dinosaurs wrestle the lesser mammals and reptilians will make their own war in the nooks and crannies of far flung outposts in Africa, Asia and lower Americas. And while raiding adjacent tribes they will be selected to do proxy warfare for the behemoths.

As long as the major powers attempt to promote a progressive morality on the world, favoring black homosexual Indians with one leg, a new balance of power must be struck to claim the top of the dung heap. We will have more of what we favor.

Politically Correct doctrine is inherently anti-evolutional in that it eschews the survival of the fittest for the ascendance of the greatest victim. A competition for which there is no shortage of participants. In this sense Palestinians are the second coming of the high cheekbone Cherokee wannabees and the Israelis are the US cavalry 150 years later in time. Marty McGuffin has arrived just in time to prevent a Wounded Knee and destroy the very DNA of existence in its stead.

Shortly after WWI’s armistice, American Congressmen proposed to outlaw war, principally among them Sen. William E. Borah (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Borah), a fool and an asshat if ever there was one. Borah was the template for all the gullible elites that followed him. Years later, he’s supposed to have said of Hitler’s invasion of Poland, “if only I could have talked to the fellow, maybe this could have been avoided.”

At some point, the apes mutated and homo something-or-the-other was born. Do you suppose the apes took pride in what they had begotten? When homo something-or-the-other produces homo something-else, will anyone notice? Will even homo something-else notice?

It appears to me that modern liberals have appointed themselves as homo something-else and are attempting to retrofit homo something-or-other. Or maybe they’re just herding them into the zoo.

Now that members of the human species no longer decimate their competition, we have more diversity with different cultures and morals. That some heathen thoughtlessly kill others, does not grant us the right to reciprocate less we become as evil as they, preaches the left.

Evolution, if true, has failed to impress us, its subjects, with the true import of its lessons.

#29 MSO Homo sapiens unsapiens? Homo socialatus faciatus? Homo liberalus stupidus? In fact, we have been devolving for several thousand years, as individual capability traits are less reflected in the birthrate. Cattle don’t need to be fast, or smart, only beefy or milkable.

One exception, perhaps, is Genghis Khan, who may have been personally responsible for 10-15% of the present population.

When Mr. Pinker suggests that we’ve become the New Man with violence having been bred out of us, he’s no doubt thinking of himself and those in his circles. These types no doubt espouse non-violence, perhaps even thinking the cruelty of the meat industry is too much to bear. The man is supposed to be a specialist on evolutionary psychology, a leader in the field. So it’s disconcerting to see some statement that naive. Violence has been bred out of us? I can assure him that down on Mean Street, USA he’ll find all the violence and dsyfunction he never thought possible from his ivory tower.

And in that tower what do we find but leftists? Leftists fool themselves if they think they stand athwart violence, or that violence has been bred out of them. The exact opposite is the case. Violence is bred into a leftist. Theirs is a peculiar ideology that is wholly based on class struggle. The progressive’s utopia itself rests on the resolution of the tensions in the Hegellian dialect. This means not only getting on “the right side of history” as they anticipate it, but making damn well sure everybody else is forced along. By hook or crook, and, especially, by governmental coercion (ie., the exclusive permissible use of, what else?, violence).

Through time smart leftists have at times recognized their violent basis and embraced it. Robespierre at one time refused to harm a flea, perhaps like Mr. Pinker and Co. He took a stand against what else but capital punishment. But that was before he stumbled upon his idea of the Republic of Virtue, a thing to be achieved by means of the guillotine and a Reign of Terror. Likewise, Che Guevarra started out as a medical doctor, interested in saving lives not taking them. But once his sights settled on final communist dream, he was dreaming of the New Man as a Killing Machine, killing his way towards ultimate victory.

Maybe the Revolution wasn’t supposed to be televised. But it was always supposed to be violent.

For some reason, I am reminded of a tag we used back when I was dealing with various legally challenged types. We sometimes referred to them as Felonius Erraticus Erectus. Given their dismissive attitude towards the rule of law and the Constitution, it seems that your average Democrat and further Left could aptly share the designator.

#32 SB I considered using “Homo erectus” for a comment on Genghis Khan, but decided not to for a couple of reasons. First, this is a classy site. And, Genghis Kahn did his (horizontal) level best not to go extinct like H. erectus apparently did.

Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness” is an apt metaphor for the evil-at-heart-UN, and the hopelessness of the innocent people of the Dark Continent who are dependent on the corrupt and “humanitarian” UN. Maybe the UN itself is the sympatric breeding ground for a new species of Homo pinkus corruptus?

Pinker publishes in Scientific American. I was a lifelong subscriber to Scientific American from early childhood. I had saved all the issues, until the Germans bought the publication a couple decades ago. It quickly became far-liberal political, with lots of stuff about global warming, and similar collectivist tripe. With regret, I dropped my subscription, and discarded my previously-treasured backissues. Collectivism destroys everything that was or becomes worthwhile.

34. jaybird
I was a lifelong subscriber to Scientific American from early childhood. I had saved all the issues, until the Germans bought the publication a couple decades ago. It quickly became far-liberal political, with lots of stuff about global warming, and similar collectivist tripe. With regret, I dropped my subscription, and discarded my previously-treasured backissues.

I knew they went leftist/green years ago, but I didn’t know they had been bought out by Germans.

About 20 years ago, I acquired a large collection from the mid-50s through the mid-60s. The ads are fascinating. They were for engineering firms, machine shops, and electronic and chemical companies. Some were large corporations, but many more were small local businesses throughout the country that actually designed and built things. They proudly touted their wares, and brimmed with optimism that they were improving the human condition through science and technology.

Most of those companies are gone now. It was a different world then, and a different America.

“It’s always nice to know that the French government is still remorseful that France ever entered the American War of Independence. It’s also nice to know how France is unhappy that the United States didn’t completely stay out of World War I and World War II. Since “war is never the solution”, it is nice to know that Allied guns did not solve the Nazi occupation of France during World War II; instead, the proper means to stopping the occupation should have been the stage sit-ins at Gestapo headquarters.”

Fabius is Minister of a socialist government, he doesn’t represent all the French

but I have some news on how you treated the French once the Independance war was won:

“A turning-point in French-American relations took place in 1794 when John Jay, a Federalist, was sent to London to discuss pending issues between the United States and Britain. Jay’s Treaty, signed in November 1794, was interpreted by French authorities, then pitted against Britain in a merciless war, as a sign of American surrender to British demands, and thus as treason : the United States was at the time the only French ally remaining. A French editor wrote, recalling French support during the War of Independence: “Si n’aviez-vous pas une dette sacrée à payer, n’aviez-vous pas l’honneur national à défendre ? Qui retenait vos forts, qui capturait vos vaisseaux? L’Angleterre. Qui voulut vous asservir? Qui vous suscita (sic) la guerre contre les Algériens et les Indiens? L’Angleterre. Qui vous défendit quand vous brisâtes vos chaînes? La France. Qui veut pour son intérêt que vous conserviez votre liberté? la France ”

“1782
Confronted with the serious defeat at Yorktown and with world-wide conflicts with the French, England accepted to negotiate peace terms. Congress named peace commissioners to work in Europe ‘under the supervision of the French’: Franklin, Jay, Adams, and Laurens.

On 30 November 1782, without informing the French, the American commissioners signed preliminary articles with the British negotiators. However, it stipulated that the provisions depended upon France making its own preliminary treaty with Britain. The Americans were aware that they violated their instructions and had not kept faith with the French ally.

Vergennes was not surprised. He had his reasons for terminating the war quickly, and accepted the American diplomatic acts with the chide:

“We have never based our policy towards the United States on their gratitude. This sentiment is infinitely rare among sovereigns, and unknown to republics.”

-http://xenophongroup.com/mcjoynt/alliance2.htm

yet, if the US had repaid what they owed to the King of France in time, no terror would have happened. Yes I know, there wasn’t any reliable american bank then, but no american effort was seen for thanking the french for their help, in the contrary, as soon the Independance was won, they reverted to their former masters !

and I don’t mention the french settlers that were forced to adopt the anglo-saxons language and rules, otherwise they were put in camps, where lots died from starvation and bad treatment, and deported back to France or Louisiana

“United Nations peacekeepers, who had deployed helicopters to strafe the rebels with cannons and rockets on Sunday in a futile attempt to slow their advance, appeared to give up and just stood by watching as the rebels took the city. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said it was “absurd” that the 17,000-member UN force was unable to stop a few hundred rebels.

Absurd? Absurd?”

A Italian commenter on TE has the explanation of “absurd”:

“Still, while not a fan of French foreign (and military) policy in Africa, I have to say that I was at the same time appalled and fascinated, being there, on how just 150 French special forces (supported by about 80 Swedish SSG and other EU logistics and diplomatic support) dealt with crazy jungle militias in DRC responsible for nearly 60,000 deaths; all in about 3 months, where 7,000 Ugandan soldiers (well armed, US-trained and generally not very kind) failed. Operation Artemis under the EU-lead Interim Emergency Multinational Force is just one of the many examples where we are taught how sheer numbers mean nothing, and quality and resolution matter a lot.”

Also Ivory coast war, while the UN troops couldn’t dislodge Gbagbo within 2 years, the french troops managed it in a couple of months.

Fabius can’t ignore that

About his reflexion on the Palestino/Israeli conflict, especially when it’s hot, he can’t pronounce a bellicose opinion, that would ignite fights right away in the region, and may-be in France too, as the muslim community is rather siding the Palestinians, so while relying to a UN generality, he isn’t taking part

Marie Claude: Please do not forget that the French, especially their fleet at Yorktown< was in support of the American War for Independence. Thus it was not surprising that the USA conducted the concluding treaty without consulting the court at Versailles.

As far as the USA not even trying to repay the monetary debt to France, well that caused a lot of trouble. The "French Spoilation Claims" were a lengthy and nasty piece of litigation. They resulted from the French seizing American merchant vessels in lieu of payment. The owners then sued the US government for damages and it was a real mess never fully resolved.

But can you elaborate on how our non-payment led to the terror. Me no understand the connections. Merci.

Angkor Thom was the last capital of the Khmer Empire and it contained, among other things, the Bayon, at its exact centre. Angkor Thom was an imperial centre and is not exactly tiny. The original city walls were approximately eight metres high and enclosed a square approximately 3Km on each side. The Khmer Empire fell in the 15th century. However, the jungle there is fairly vigorous and rapidly swallowed the place for centuries.

Yes, the locals knew it was there but the rest of the world didn’t have a clue.

Angkor Wat is very much in the Hindu mould, with outer walls being covered in scenes from the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. I first went there in 1990, when the place was guarded by Khmer military types of various descriptions. The Khmer Rouge had previously camped there for quite a while and seemed to have kept themselves amused by knocking the heads off statues and defacing the breasts of the apsara dancers carved in bas-relief all over the walls. The view from the central tower of Angkor Wat itself is impressive. Had an interesting chat with a Polish archaeologist who was moving into new work on the Bayon. This large temple started out in Mahayana Buddhist times and picked up different influences in later Hindu and Theravadan Buddhist eras.

Interestingly, the current “leading” archaeological team is Japanese. Equally interestingly, if you look around the site, particularly in Angkor Wat itself, there is occasional graffiti from a large Japanese “package tour group” that went through in the early 1940′s.

An other odd thing about Angkor Wat, apart from its enormous size, (perimeter wall: 1024m x 802m), is that unlike virtually every other structure of its kind in the region, its main entrance faces West, not East.

The masonry in the Bayon is interesting in that much of it seems to lack the “interlocking” found in European and North Asian construction from well before the 12th century, when the Bayon was built. The jungle was literally pulling the place apart long before serious modern exploration began.

France (who already hadn’t sane finances since John law had bankrupted France alredy under Louis XV regime) was dry because of the subsidies given to the American “revolutionnaires”, which were clinging money, arms… then the king couldn’t get “brioches” for its people

The guy comes up with a huge number of counterintuitive results (UN good, violence is declining because of the liberal agenda, etc). However, he argues his side well, with lots of good evidence and concedes points against himself where he should.

He’s wrong, but fair and his books are worth reading. It’s unhealthy for conservatives to only brush into the Paul Krugmans and Andrew Sullivans. You would incorrectly conclude that all liberals are willfully addled.